Treating Chronic Depression: Psychotherapy and Medication
Contents:
Don't settle for a treatment that's partially effective at relieving your depression or one that works but causes intolerable side effects. Work with your doctor or other mental health professional to find the best treatment possible, even though it may take time and effort to try new approaches. Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission. Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below. Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization and proceeds from Web advertising help support our mission.
Mayo Clinic does not endorse any of the third party products and services advertised. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. This content does not have an English version. This content does not have an Arabic version.
Free E-newsletter Subscribe to Housecall Our general interest e-newsletter keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics. Treatment-resistant depression Sometimes depression doesn't get better, even with treatment. Explore what you can do about it. By Mayo Clinic Staff. Related videos Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Mayo Clinic Depression Center.
Cognitive therapy vs. medications for depression: Treatment outcomes and neural mechanisms
References Thase M, et al. Unipolar depression in adults: Treatment of resistant depression.
- ?
- A COUGAR IS TAKEN DOWN?
- .
- ?
- Behind the Mask.
- 15 Days of Prayer with Saint Augustine.
- !
Accessed June 1, National Alliance on Mental Illness. How psychologists help with depressive disorders. Ionescu DF, et al. Pharmacological approaches to the challenge of treatment-resistant depression. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience. Bewernick B, et al. Update on neuromodulation for treatment-resistant depression. De Sousa RT, et al. Challenging treatment-resistant major depressive disorder: A roadmap for improved therapeutics. Qureshi NA, et al. Mood disorders and complementary and alternative medicine: Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment.
Dold M, et al. Evidence-based pharmacotherapy of treatment-resistant unipolar depression. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. Hall-Flavin DK, et al. Utility of integrated pharmacogenomic testing to support the treatment of major depressive disorder in a psychiatric outpatient setting. Accessed June 2, What you need to know.
National Institute of Mental Health. Acceptance and commitment therapy ACT. Department of Veterans Affairs. Accessed June 7, Hall-Flavin DK expert opinion. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Products and Services Book: After a flood, are food and medicines safe to use?
Treatment-resistant depression - Mayo Clinic
All about sleep disorders Alzheimer's: New treatments Alzheimer's Understanding the difference between dementia types Alzheimer's: Can a head injury increase my risk? Mediterranean diet Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease: Can exercise prevent memory loss? Alzheimer's drug shows early promise Alzheimer's drugs Alzheimer's genes Alzheimer's nose spray: Could it be both?
Alzheimer's stages Alzheimer's test: Detection at the earliest stages Ambien: Is dependence a concern? Is there such a thing? Antidepressants and weight gain: Can they stop working? Selecting one that's right for you Antidepressants: Which cause the fewest sexual side effects? Antiphospholipid syndrome Antidepressants and pregnancy Atypical antidepressants Atypical depression Axona: Medical food to treat Alzheimer's Back pain Video: Back-to-school concussion screening Bedtime routines: Not just for babies Benefits of being bilingual Binge-eating disorder Blood Basics Borderline personality disorder Breast-feeding and medications Dr.
Wallace Video Parathyroid Vagus nerve stimulation Caffeine and depression: Is there a link? The role of diet and exercise in preventing Alzheimer's disease Can music help someone with Alzheimer's? Try daytime exercise Hidradenitis suppurativa wound care Caregiver depression Celiac disease Celiac disease: Can gluten be absorbed through the skin? How do I get enough grains? What does that mean? Can it cure hypothyroidism?
Make it decaf Complete blood count CBC Complicated grief Compulsive sexual behavior Concussion Concussion in children Concussion Recovery Concussion Telemedicine Coping with the stress of hidradenitis suppurativa Coping with the emotional ups and downs of psoriatic arthritis Creating a hidradenitis suppurativa care team Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Cupping therapy: Can it relieve fibromyalgia pain?
Cushing syndrome Cyclothymia cyclothymic disorder Delirium Depression and anxiety: Can I have both?
Psychotherapy - Evidence-Based Treatments For Major Depression
Depression, anxiety and exercise Depression: Diagnosis is key Depression during pregnancy Depression in women: Understanding the gender gap Depression major depressive disorder Depression: Provide support, encouragement Depression: Supporting a family member or friend Diabetes and Alzheimer's Diabetes and depression: Coping with the two conditions Diagnosing Alzheimer's Dissociative disorders Video: Can brain games help Alzheimer's patients?
Fibromyalgia and acupuncture Fibromyalgia: With the exception of the behavioral approaches, which have always been scientifically based, most older forms of psychotherapy have not been subjected to rigorous scientific tests to see how well they work. Thankfully, the last twenty-five years or so has seen a growing interest in the development of evidence-based or empirically supported therapies EBTs.
EBTs are standardized psychotherapy treatments that have been subjected to scientific clinical studies and which have shown substantial evidence of efficacy. The term "efficacy" is a tricky term. It refers to how well an intervention helps people recover during a clinical study.
Efficacy is not quite the same thing as "effectiveness" which refers to how well a therapy works under real world conditions. Unfortunately, true effectiveness is much harder to study than efficacy. Though they are not perfect therapies by any means, modern empirically based therapies represent the state of the art and the best that the therapy professions currently have to offer patients.
If you are depressed and have the opportunity to receive an evidence-based form of psychotherapy that has been specifically designed to help you overcome your depression, you should feel very comfortable deciding to participate in that therapy.
Psychotherapies that fit the definition of "empirically supported" meet several different criteria. These therapies have a specified focus e. Typically, clinicians follow a treatment manual, which specifies the number of sessions to be offered, what to talk about and teach during those sessions, and what techniques are to be employed during those sessions.
Evidence-based therapies are highly structured for a reason; they aim to teach specific skills to specific patients who will benefit from them.
Although most episodes of depression resolve without treatment, over one- quarter of all patients suffer from chronic depression, and the vast. Psychotherapy is an effective treatment for clinical depression. Learn more from WebMD about how various forms of therapy work to help you.
EBTs are not designed to be open-ended or free-form in nature but rather to achieve a specific aim. Patients generally appreciate the no-nonsense approach to treatment taken by many EBTs, but some will benefit from a more traditional open-ended and free-form mode of therapy. It is quite alright to follow a more structured EBT therapy with a more traditional supportive psychotherapy, or to participate in both EBT and supportive forms of therapy at the same time if these options prove helpful or useful to patients.
EBTs are increasingly becoming a gold standard for mental health care for a few different reasons. Health care companies like EBTs because they have scientific data that support their use therefore offering greater accountability and also because they are short-term in nature. Health insurance and managed care companies are interested in having clinicians be able to justify the number of treatment sessions necessary to treat particular disorders and EBTs offer a science-based way to do just that.
Siegle , and Steven D. Cognitive therapy CT is the best-known and most widely tested of a larger family of cognitive behavioural interventions. Antidepressant effect on connectivity of the mood-regulating circuit: Both CT and ADM probably affect limbic and prefrontal circuitry, although their proximal mechanisms of action might differ. Can it prevent memory loss? For two reasons, neuroscience provides an excellent platform for studying the mechanisms that underlie depression and the effects of ADM and CT treatment. Migraines and gastrointestinal problems:
Many patients like the shortness and focus of EBTs as well. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Interpersonal Therapy are two EBT psychotherapies, which have documented success in treating groups of people with depression in clinical trials.
The nature of depression
As with medication therapy, not all people with depression will be helped by evidence-based therapies. Keeping this in mind, we conclude our discussion of psychotherapy and depression with brief introductions to other varieties of psychotherapy that can also be helpful. For those seeking addiction treatment for themselves or a loved one, the MentalHelp.